Things Being Different
by KNS
Summary: When there's no point in staying, it's time to go. S6 finale resolution.


Things being Different

By KNS

Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine. All characters belong to their respective creators.

Sometimes – at night, or in the early, early morning – she would stir from sleep, and for a moment – just a moment – she wouldn't remember. Things would blur: time and events and emotions. Once she found herself laughing, and turned back into the pillow quite thoroughly amused, because Michael had done something hilarious, even though she wasn't sure what. Another time she heard herself muttering at him to share the blankets, and yanked at the sheets, until she was sure he mumbled back that she was always cold.

But eventually morning always came. Memory returned: straight, orderly, final.

The joke ended.

She'd only been fighting the wall for more blankets.

The drive away from the CIA holding facility had been miserable in every way.

Shame, anger, sadness, loss. More anger. More loss.

"I'm sorry," Michael had said before he shut the car door. He tried to meet her eyes, the way he did when he was trying to say more then his words conveyed.

She didn't want to. All her efforts were wrapped up in keeping herself together. But she knew this was probably it: he wouldn't be coming back this time. So she met his look squarely and said in a steady, true voice, "So am I."

She refused to look back at him when the car pulled away.

_This is Fi. Leave a message._

She refused to pick up the phone. At first she checked the messages, thinking – maybe – Michael might call. One last explanation. But he didn't. Sam, Madeline, Jesse, even Barry. No Michael.

The second or third day, she put her phone behind her car's front tire and backed over it. Then she rolled forward and backed it over again. Twice.

She hated even looking at yogurt. It made her nauseous, just thinking about it. She snarled at advertisements for it.

Oddly enough, it was a yogurt box she first used to start packing. She didn't notice until she was taping it closed, so she took a black marker and scribbled out the words and pictures on the sides.

The marker was still in her hand when she went to answer the obnoxious pounding on her front door.

"Come on, Fi – I know you're in there. You car's still in the driveway!"

It was Sam, of course, tacky floral shirt and all. Why didn't he look any different? He wasn't smiling, and there were deep lines across his drawn brow, but he still looked just one step away from a mojito.

"Don't you answer your phone anymore?" Sam demanded. "I've called you like a hundred times."

Fiona leaned against the doorway, purposefully not letting him inside. "What do you want, Sam?" She meant to sound irritated, but somehow just sounded tired.

"I want you to get off your ass and help me and Jesse find Mike," Sam replied, looking over her head into the house. "Are those boxes?"

Fi shrugged, put the cap back on the marker, and turned to go back inside. Sam followed her. Briefly she wondered what he saw: tile floors, granite counter tops, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a winding waterway? Or boxes strewn across the table, packing tape and bubble wrap sprawled over the floor? When she and Michael had put down the deposit, she'd been delighted about how much better it was than the loft. It had seemed like a beautiful home. Now it was just someplace people had used to live.

"You're leaving?" Sam said, sounding genuinely surprised. He picked up some bubble wrap. "We have to find Mike. He's in trouble, I know it. We have to. . ."

"We have to what, Sam? What to you want me to do?" The front door was still open, letting in a breeze that scooted an abandoned piece of wrapping across the floor.

Sam looked down at her, and his eyes softened. "Fi, you can't give up. Mike – he wouldn't have abandoned us voluntarily. Not you or his mom. Something's going on."

"Don't be so stupid," she snapped at him. "Michael did what he wanted to, what he always does. He chose the agency. I don't think he even does it on purpose anymore. He just makes decisions and leaves everyone else on their own while he goes off on his crusades."

Sam pushed an empty box off a chair and sat down across from her. "Listen, sister, you're wrong. Mikey wouldn't leave us holding the bag."

Fi rubbed the aching spot between her eyes. "Yes, because he's never done that before." She knew Sam thought she was the one who'd never let the relationship with Michael go. What could she say: that she'd tried to leave more than once, more than twice or three times, even to the point of surrendering herself to the police, and Michael had always convinced her to stay. He said he loved her, promised to change, swore things would be different. Soon – as soon as he found out who burned him, as soon as he dismantled the shadow organization in the CIA, as soon as Nate's killer was dead, as soon as things settled down. Always soon – never now.

Fi shook her head. "I can't do this again, Sam. Years wondering where he is, if he's alive, if he'd comeback even if he could. I've already played that game. I don't have it in me to do again."

"It's not like that this time,"Sam said again. "He's in trouble. He needs our help."

"People are who they are." She took a piece of bubble wrap and folded it around her last snow globe. "You can't change that, no matter how badly you want to." She laid it between two cups in the box on the table. It was almost sad, how it fit so simply into that yogurt box.

She wasn't taking anything with her that wouldn't fit into the car. Luckily, she'd lost most of her things when the loft burned. _"It has to look convincing,"_Michael had said. "_It has to look real."_ And it had, because it was.

Setting a box into the car's open trunk, she had to shift over other things to make it fit, careful so nothing breakable would be crushed. She didn't want to lose anything else. After a few minutes she gave up and went to get the last box.

The setting sun blinded her for a moment, but she could still see the man leaning against her front door. Michael? But she shaded her eyes and quickly saw it was Jesse. Jesse didn't look a thing like Michael, not in any way – but once in awhile he moved a certain way that almost made it easy to confuse them.

"Want a hand?" Jesse asked. "Sam said you were leaving."

"Sam has a big mouth," she said, slowly walking towards him. He didn't move away from the doorway, so she had to stop or else run into him. "You don't seem surprised," she added, tilting her head to see his expression a little better. He was hard to read – he shared than much in common with Michael.

Jesse shook his head and wouldn't meet her eyes. "Not that surprising," he answered. "No reason to stay here, without Mike." Then he softened his stance a little, let his arms uncross and his shoulders relax. "Unless you wanted to, of course." Only then would he look her full in the face.

"Don't," she said sharply, raising a hand as if he'd tried to touch her. She could read his expression now, and it hurt to see. "You're not a consolation prize, Jesse. It's not your job to be Michael's placeholder while he goes off to play Super Spy." She swallowed, offered him a small smile. "That wouldn't be fair to either of us."

He reached out to hug her, and she let him. "We're friends, you know," he said easily. "You'll let me know where you land, right? So I won't have to worry about you?"

She pressed her cheek into his shoulder. "Of course," she lied.

For whatever the reason, Miami didn't have a gigantic Irish population. But there were a handful of bars and restaurants where her countrymen gathered, and of those places there was one or two where her mother tongue was spoken.

The place she was at tonight was her favorite. She'd dragged Michael here the first time, but after that, he'd often suggested coming. Maybe it was the fireplace that burned real peat shipped all the way from Ireland, or maybe it was the sound of a familiar accent that made the place so appealing. Maybe she liked the place so much because when she'd come with Michael, he'd slip back into the man she first met in Dublin, brogue and all, and she could pretend that he was just Michael and she was just Fiona, a loving Irish couple out for a night on the town.

But that was then and this was now, and in this now she sat at the far corner of the tavern, alone, careful to meet no gaze, not even her own reflected in the mirror behind the bar. She was so focused on keeping her silence that at first she didn't realize who had claimed the stool beside her.

"I'll have what she's having," Madeline told the barkeep. "And another for my friend." She riffled through her purse, pulled out a cigarette and lighter.

"You can't smoke in here," the bartender said in a deep, booming voice.

"I'm not," Madeline replied, blowing out a long stream of smoke.

Fiona knew guilt was on her face. "I was going to call you," she said quickly.

Madeline tapped her cigarette's ashes into an ashtray the bartender had smacked down next to her drink. Smiling wryly, the older woman answered, "I know you were. Eventually."

When Fiona said nothing, Madeline looked around the room, taking stock of the smells and sounds and shadows. "How'd you get rid of your accent?" she asked, gesturing vaguely at all the room's occupants.

"I didn't," Fiona said, letting the brogue slip back into her voice. "Just learned to tap it down, 's all."

Madeline laughed a little. "Guess we all learn how to get by." She exhaled slowly.

Fi ducked her head. "Madeline, I –"

"Don't say you're sorry," Madeline interrupted. She smashed out her cigarette. "Don't you dare. I've heard enough apologies to last me a lifetime."

"I do – I do wish things had turned out differently," Fi offered.

"Don't we all," Madeline snorted. She shook her head a little, offered Fi a twisted smile. Raising her glass in a mock toast, she said, "Here's to things being different."

Fiona found herself feeling a rush of gratitude towards Michael's mother. It wasn't the first time – Madeline had her flaws, but vindictiveness wasn't one of them. So she returned the smile and raised her glass.

"Here's to things being different."

There were a hundred ways to leave Miami. By air, land, sea, and any combination thereof. She'd already chosen land, but she'd left it at that. Now it was time to go.

She had a fast car with a full tank of gas, a GPS on her dashboard and a loaded handgun under her seat. It was early morning, with the sky turning shades of glory as the sun pushed back the night. An ambulance passed her, full lights and sirens, but otherwise the road was mostly hers.

San Antonio, Del Mar, Portland. Or back to the east coast, maybe. Anywhere but here.

Fi settled into her seat, turned on the radio, and took one last look at the city lights fading in the rear view mirror.

Madeline just barely heard the doorbell ring over the noise of the vacuum cleaner. She wasn't expecting company. "Sam, is that you?" she demanded, briefly removing the cigarette from her lips. "You know I told you to call first – "

But when she yanked open the door, it wasn't Sam. It was Fiona, looking small and defeated, the way she'd looked on the day they'd all been released from the CIA holding facility.

"I couldn't decide which way to go," Fi said simply.

– End –


End file.
